The Rise of Militias in Mexico

The Rise of Militias in Mexico

Citizens' Security or Further Conflict Escalation?

BY VANDA FELBAB-BROWN

T his article explores the security and political effects of militia forces that emerged in Mexico in recent years in reaction to violent organized crime, most prominently in the states of Michoac?n and Guerrero. Militia forces are not a new phenomenon in the country; in various forms and guises, they permeate the history of Mexico. Often, militia groups have been sponsored by the Mexican state, including as recently as in the 1990s government counterinsurgency efforts against a leftist anti-globalization insurgency, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ej?rcito Zapatista de Liberaci?n Nacional, EZLN).

The anti-drug-cartel militias that emerged after 2006, when then Mexican President Felipe Calder?n declared a war on the drug cartels, however, emerged either more or less spontaneously or with the sponsorship of powerful politicians and businessmen, not as a state policy. In fact, for a good number of years the Calder?n administration and that of his successor President Enrique Pe?a Nieto ignored them. Eventually, the behavior and visibility of the militia groups forced the government of Mexico to react.

Mexico is a middle-power country with a relatively strong economy; it is not a failing state. Nonetheless, the state has been historically weak or absent in large areas, including those where militias are currently strong. Such weakness of territorial presence and its closely related weakness of rule of law are not only a matter of a lack of governance capacity, but fundamentally also of the decisions the Mexican state and elite have made, namely, not providing the resources necessary to boost state presence in indigenous and rural areas, such as to the drug-cartel and militiarife La Tierra Caliente of Michoac?n and Guerrero. Consciously or by default, those areas have been relegated to socio-economic marginalization and underdevelopment. Laws have neither been enforced nor internalized and socio-economic survival and advancement are often dependent on participation in illegal economies. Rules, essential informal ones, are dispensed or

Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and author of Narco Noir: Mexico's Cartels, Cops, and Corruption (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press, 2016, forthcoming).

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enforced by individual powerbrokers, such as political caciques, powerful businessmen, or organized crime groups. The formation of antiorganized-crime militias is thus an expression of both the absence of the state and its continual rejection by locals who find it remote, irrelevant, undependable, or outright corrupt. However, just like other aspects of politics in Mexico, particularly in large parts of its rural areas, even the formation of the militias has been co-opted by organized crime groups.

Indeed, what emerges from the following analysis of militia formation in Michoac?n and Guerrero and state responses to their spread is an overwhelming tendency for the militias to go rogue. Although the militias seemed to alleviate violence in the initial period, they soon became predatory and abusive themselves. No matter what the original motivations and justifications for militia formation, militias have a strong tendency to escape control by their overseers and engage in problematic and abusive behavior. Even when militias spontaneously emerge in response to abuse that local communities find intolerable, the militias have a strong tendency to deteriorate to such behavior themselves. The scale of such misdeeds often negates their previous usefulness, and the militias become a profound threat to order and rule of law and a new driver of conflict.

Rarely do local communities or official state structures have the capacity to keep militias in check. But the less effort the national government puts into developing official mechanisms of control, restraint, and rollback, the worse the predation and deleterious effects the militias will have on stability and the longterm legitimacy of local political dispensations. Although militias might be local, their effects are not: they have profound and

complex implications for political rivalries and balances of power throughout the political, militancy, and criminal systems.

Heat Rising in the Historically Hot La Tierra Caliente ... and Around

Amidst intense and shifting criminal violence, which since 2006 has resulted in the death of between 80,000 and 100,000 people in Mexico,1 the country's mountainous center stands out. Although the intensity of homicides has been smaller there than in some of the northern cities, such as Ciudad Ju?rez, Tijuana, and Monterrey,2 the central states of Micho?can and Guerrero are nonetheless very violent. For at least two years now, Guerrero has been one of Mexico's most violent states. Its rural areas are badly affected by the violence, and its main city, Acapulco, has held the dubious title of most violent city in Mexico since at least 2012.

In addition, for decades, Guerrero and Michoac?n have been some of Mexico's most prominent locales for the illegal cultivation of poppy and production of heroin. These illicit economies have been greatly expanding since 2013 in response to growing demand in the United States for illegal opiates.

Large parts of their territories, including the so-called Tierra Caliente, have historically experienced minimal state presence. The underdeveloped Guerrero, in particular, has been one of Mexico's most lawless states, pervaded by insurgents, criminals, rogue politicians, and militant unions. Guerrero and Michoac?n have also featured some of the most iconic episodes of Mexico's crime wars, including the killing of students in Iguala, Guerrero in September 2014,3 and the mass killing of presumed members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Ecuandureo,

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Michoac?n in May 2015.4 Those two central states have seen the most visible expansion of "anti-crime" militias, capturing the attention of Mexico's public and ultimately also the Pe?a Nieto administration.

Militias, whether genuine self-defense forces or private security forces of powerful Mexican politicians, have a centuries-old history in Mexico. Even in the post-WWII period, many municipal police forces in Mexico essentially functioned like personal (and often abusive) militia forces of the district mayor.5 Many municipal police forces in Mexico are deeply penetrated and often outright controlled by organized crime, as are many municipal governments, particularly in places like Guerrero and Michoac?n. Historically, the Mexican government and military often recruited militias to fight insurgencies, such as in Guerrero and Chiapas. Adding to this

context are officially-sanctioned militias of indigenous communities ? defined as indigenous community police forces and indigenous justice systems ? which have been permitted under Mexico's constitution for several decades.

However, over the past several years, the self-defense forces that emerged in response to the extortion and violence of criminal groups in Michoac?n and Guerrero came to symbolize the weakness of the central state in providing public safety.

President Calder?n and the Cartels' Shuffle in Michoac?n

The home state of former Mexican president Felipe Calder?n, Michoc?n was an early focus of his administration in response to the rapid growth of the violent criminal cartel La Familia Michoacana (LFM). In 2006, LFM was one of

J.-H. Jan?en

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Mexico's most vicious drug trafficking groups, and its authority was expanding over large parts of the state, particularly in La Tierra Caliente. It engaged in brutal violence, visible on the streets of Michoac?n.6 It launched an aggressive extortion campaign that targeted major businesses in the state, such as avocado growers and logging companies ? not even businesses operating in the state capital of Morelia were immune. By 2009, LFM reportedly had influence over (or extorted anyway) perhaps as many as 180,000 sales outlets, including gasoline stations, truck shops, street markets, movie theaters, and other businesses. Its daily earnings were reported (likely highly exaggerated) to be USD 1.9 million.7

La Familia's control over some communities was pervasive. LFM would monitor the entries and exits of towns and villages, permitting or denying passage to anyone passing

through, sometimes extorting the person for money. Mixing religion and rituals under a cultish cloak, it also established "courts" and "dispute resolution" procedures for residents of areas under its influence. Indeed, some residents of Michoac?n's Tierra Caliente as well as Morelia told me in spring 2011 that they actively preferred the courts of La Familia to the formal state justice.8 Others were just terrified, believing that the group had halcones (lookouts and informants) everywhere; had deeply penetrated mayors' offices, municipal councils, and local police forces; and could strike anyone.9 But La Familia also had to battle other criminal groups for turf, including the super-violent and expanding Los Zetas as well as smaller rivals, such as the Millenio Cartel. Over time, government action combined with these attacks from rivals hastened the demise of La Familia.

Diego Fern?ndez

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During the Calder?n administration, Michoac?n became one of the first areas where the Mexican military was deployed to combat criminal groups. Like elsewhere in Mexico, one of the military's key missions was to back up, and in some circumstances completely replace, Michoac?n's municipal police forces which typically were undertrained, under-resourced, deeply corrupt, and completely overwhelmed by organized crime.

Equally important, the new military policing strategy ? consisting of high-value targeting and searches at fixed checkpoints ? failed to restore or, perhaps more precisely, expand state authority and control. Nonetheless, the highvalue targeting strategy was capturing many of LFM's top leaders; and in the spring of 2011, Los Pi?os (the seat of the Mexican president) declared LFM dismantled.

Within weeks, however, a new criminal group, Los Caballeros Templarios, emerged and took over the illegal and informal markets in Michoac?n that La Familia used to run. Although portraying themselves as a selfdefense force to protect Michoac?n residents and purge the area of organized crime, Los Templarios soon came to behave like the evil they purported to ostracize. Even more aggressively than LFM, they extorted legal, informal, and illegal businesses. In addition to kidnapping relatives of rich businessmen,10 they, too, demanded extortion fees from avocado farmers and logging companies, and expanded the extortion racket into iron ore extraction and shipping through Michoac?n's principal port and economic hub, L?zaro C?rdenas. In March 2014, the Mexican government's special envoy for restoring rule of law in Michoac?n, Alfredo Castillo, claimed that Los Templarios made more of their money from extorting the iron ore extraction, processing, and transshipment

operations than from drug smuggling or other extortion.11 Regardless of whether this assessment of the cartel's financial portfolio is accurate, the Templarios, exploiting their strong territorial presence and a fearsome reputation, succeeded in turning themselves into a multifaceted mafia with fingers in many illegal rackets in the state and widespread extortion.

Militias Popping Up ... in Guerrero Too

By the spring of 2014, Los Templarios were the area's most feared authority. Despite their purported emergence in reaction to the abuses and excesses of La Familia Michoacana, the Templarios also overreached in their demands for extortion fees and obedience and triggered a backlash. As a result of this heavy-handedness, anti-Templarios militias began forming in Michoac?n's countryside even before the influence of the Templarios peaked.

Anti-crime self-defense forces, such as in Michoac?n's Cher?n municipality, began emerging as early as 2011, but the Calder?n administration did not pay much attention to them. Their expansion, visibility, and increasingly questionable behavior continued to grow through 2013. By then, the militias were arresting people whom they accused of working for the Templarios and other criminal groups, and held their own court trials and meted out sentences. They were particularly active in Michoac?n's towns of Tepalcatepec, Buena Vista, and La Ruana, where they gathered whatever weapons they could find and seized control of police stations. When the selfdefense forces began to beat up, expel, and detain not just municipal police officers, but also soldiers, the administration of Calder?n's successor, President Enrique Pe?a Nieto, could no longer remain placid about their growth. But even detentions of militia members who

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were engaged in the worst excesses, such as kidnappings of police personnel, did not appear to deter them.13

The militias also grew in the neighboring state of Guerrero, one of the most violent areas in Mexico during the Pe?a Nieto administration thus far, with 73.2 homicides per 100,000 in 2013, compared to the national average of 29.3 per 100,000 that year.14 Although its homicide rate decreased in 2014, Guerrero remained the second most violent state in Mexico.15 A plethora of small, fragmented, unstable, and highly violent criminal gangs emerged in the state in the wake of the federal government's high-value-targeting interdiction policy against the once dominant Beltr?n Leyva Cartel. Like in Michoac?n, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel from neighboring Jalisco has also been encroaching on their territory, triggering violent battles.

In Guerrero, the provenance and control of the militias seems even murkier than in Michoac?n. Some of the self-defense militias appeared to be permeated by organized crime groups, such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.16 In fact, some cartels have begun labeling their own hitmen as self-defense groups and have attempted to penetrate and subvert the existing self-defense groups. At the same time, the militia forces in Guerrero have also been intricately intermeshing with the socalled "community police forces," legally permitted under Mexico's constitution and allowed to carry firearms, which operate mainly in indigenous communities. In the spring of 2013, there were 45 such community police groups in 14 of Mexico's 32 states.17 In Guerrero's municipality of Ocotito, for example, the local self-start-up militia force appeared to have the assistance of the Union of the People and Organization of the State of

Guerrero (Uni?n de los Pueblos y Organizaciones del Estado de Guerrero: UPOEG) community police force.18

Moreover, an extensive whispering campaign emerged in both Guerrero and Michoac?n that the militias might also be taking justice into their own hands more aggressively ? such as by killing those they viewed as opponents. At minimum, they would trot around with machine guns, expel or arrest municipal police officers they saw as incompetent or corrupt, and block roads, using their own discretion to determine who could go in and out.

Can't Fight `Em: Bring `Em Into the Fold

The original reaction of high officials of the Pe?a Nieto administration was to denounce the militias. The president, for example, pointedly stated: "[W]hatever the denominations of these groups, the practice they have of taking justice into their own hands [is] outside the law, and my government will combat it."19 But at the same time, state officials in Michoac?n continued hinting that the militia existence could be tolerated. In Guerrero, the contradictions between state and federal-level authorities and among state responses were even more pronounced: on the one hand, the state was providing the self-defense forces with funds, uniforms, and communications equipment, while on the other hand, it was arresting at least some militia members. In the spring of February 2014, as one of Guerrero's militia groups seized villages on the outskirts of the state capital, Chilpancingo, Mexico City dispatched military battalions and federal police units to stop them from moving into the city itself.

As the process unfolded, federal level officials learned that doing away with the militias

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was not easy. Negotiating with the militias to effect their disarmament proved especially difficult, as militia members emphasized that they would be subject to retaliation and could only disarm after the criminal gangs, including the key leaders of the Templarios, were arrested. But forcibly dismantling the militias could set off a bloody and problematic fight between them and the federal government, in which assistance from local and state authorities could not necessarily be counted on. After all, the militias' own narrative claimed that they were merely defending themselves and their families and communities against the

brutality of the crime groups because the state had failed to do so, which indeed was often the case. 20

The increased deployment of Mexico's military into Guerrero and Michoac?n, which President Pe?a Nieto boosted by 50 percent at the beginning of 2013, did not slow the formation, spread, and audacity of the militia forces. By the end of 2013, 47 out of Michoac?n's 113 municipalities experienced their presence. In the neighboring state of Guerrero, they operated in more than half of the state's 81 municipalities by the spring of 2014.21 Areas that were key Templarios hotbeds in Michoac?n,

Government of Mexico

President Nieto in Chilpancingo, Guerrero for presentation of his "Plan Nuevo Guerrero," which instituted a reconstruction and modernization agenda for the violence plagued state

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such as Apatzing?n, experienced dramatic firearm battles between the Templarios and the self-defense forces. Elsewhere, the self-defense forces set up checkpoints. In January 2014, the self-defense forces took over the municipal building in Par?cuaro and blocked off entry points to the town, digging in for a battle with the Templarios, until the Federal Police negotiated its own entry. The militias also seized control of a nearby town, La Huerta. In some parts of Michoac?n, the Federal Police began operating joint checkpoints with the self-defense forces. Membership in the militias swelled to the thousands, by some reports to as many as 20,000,22 though no reliable counts were conducted, and the militias had an incentive to exaggerate their strength. To accommodate the militias' insistence that they could only stop their vigilantism if the government arrested key leaders of the Templarios, the government launched a dragnet in Michoac?n and over several months captured key Templario leaders.

When a prominent Templario leader known as "El T?o" was arrested in January 2014, Mexico's Interior Minister Miguel ?ngel Osorio Chong announced that the government had negotiated a deal with the groups to absorb them into a new state security entity known as the "Rural Defense Corps." The deal specified that the corps would be temporary and required that the militia leaders would provide the government with a registry of their members. Putting a time limit on the existence of the militias was a highly appropriate provision since dismantling any unofficial and extralegal forces and vigilantes, however motivated, always needs to be the position of a state adhering to the rule of law.

Even so, there were good reasons to doubt the desirability of the arrangement. The fact that the government was not able to prevent

and dismantle the militias in the first place, and was essentially left to make a deal with them, was glaring evidence of the weakness of the state in the rural areas of Mexico. The deal also created a bad precedent, signaling that if one wanted to get on the payroll of the state and take the law and its enforcement into one's own hands (or cloak one's extortion and other crimes with legitimacy), one only had to set up a self-defense militia. More immediately, there were good reasons to be skeptical about the accuracy of the member registry handed over to the state by the militia leaders and the ability of the state to do its independent re-vetting of the militia members. Moreover, it was not obvious just how committed the militias were to the deal: a key militia leader, Dr. Jos? Manuel Mireles, was not at the signing, and another militia group from the Ruana area was not only absent, but occupied the government building in the Perib?n municipality that very same day. In Guerrero, the militias rejected a similar deal to be folded into an official rural defense force, claiming they did not believe Mexico's federal government was truly motivated to combat the criminal groups.23

But, however problematic, the deal to form the Rural Defense Corps was clearly better than the previous policy of just allowing the militias to run loose and act without restraint. While not desirable, the Rural Defense Corps concept was likely the least bad option the government had available at that moment. It was only a matter of time before the unsupervised militias would start engaging in predation on local communities, designating as a criminal anyone who crossed them, arrogating "justice" to themselves, and further damaging the already poor bonds between the state and the population. And it was not too

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